Buried Bottles and Articles: a literature review

Buried Bottles and Articles: a literature review Emmett Cantkier Summer 2024  Introduction Atlanta has always been a major hub for soft drink production since the beginning of the industry at the turn of the twentieth century, producing the world’s most popular soft drink, Coca-Cola, as well as attracting its competitors and knockoffs from surrounding areas. My ongoing research analyzes the soft drink industry in 20th-century Atlanta based on the physical bottles and cans found in the MARTA Archaeological collection along with associated historical research. The collection was excavated by Georgia State University faculty and students throughout the 1970s at the proposed construction sites of the MARTA commuter trains in Atlanta. Three sources use data from the MARTA Archaeological Project. The scope of the collection presents substantial data for tracking brands throughout the time and space of 20th-century Atlanta to uncover an untold history of the Southeastern soft drink industry and its role in Atlanta’s history. In my ongoing research I have identified over 300 branded bottles of over fifty unique brands. However, the study would be incomplete without contextual reading. Academic research on soft drink history and archaeology is incredibly rare (and there is nothing on Atlanta specifically), despite being a relatable topic to the public, seen through the popularity of Atlanta’s World of Coca-Cola museum, for example. Antique bottle enthusiasts certainly post plenty of information on forums and blogs as well, but they are usually specific to a certain company, not peer-reviewed, and may not cite their sources. Similarly, newspaper archives can provide helpful primary information such as the dates a company was in business, where it was located, and who ran it, but again these details are specific to one company. Still, some of the sources in this review may seem unconventional, but that appears to be the nature of this study, as there is simply a lack of academic papers on the subject. In particular, two sources are student papers, one from an archive on JSTOR and the other from the original documents written on the MARTA Archaeological Project for a conference presentation. Another source was a chapter in a small university’s Anthropology department internal publication, accessed through the Internet Archive. Additionally, one source from a short-lived journal that only survived at a few distant libraries had to be accessed via digital Interlibrary Loan. All this to say, relevant academic literature is few and far between. The broad fields of urban archaeology, historical archaeology, and general anthropology all intertwine in this study. Urban archaeology is namely the archaeology of the city, whether the study uses the city as an artifact itself or artifacts within the city (as mine does). The field usually overlaps with historical archaeology, which utilizes historical sources in conjunction with the archaeological record to draw conclusions and is often more modern as historical sources are abundant in the modern era and especially in cities. Anthropological theory can help tie the results of an excavation to a broader understanding of culture and consumption in the historical urban environment. The extreme specificity of my topic compelled me to connect instead loosely related articles and chapters on broader topics in the fields, similar studies, and specific aspects of the overarching topic. This literature review allows me to deepen my understanding of the results of the study and find new methodologies to implement in the making of a completely unique research project. The sources will be compared in three sections: contextual reading, similar studies, and specific readings. Contextual reading The following three articles aid in providing background to the study in terms of theory, definitions, and considerations in the fields of urban and historical archaeology. I began by reading what Roy Dickens and William Bowen, leaders of the MARTA excavations in the 1970s, had written about the project in “Problems and Promises in Urban Historical Archaeology: The MARTA Project.” Roy S. Dickens and William R. Bowen, “Problems and Promises in Urban Historical Archaeology: The MARTA Project,” Historical Archaeology 14 (1980): 42–57. To learn of the ideas of other scholars in the related fields, “Urban archaeology, historical archaeology, and anthropology: some basic definitions and relationships” synthesizes the ideas of many scholars as a basis for Liam Donat Murphy’s study which is also largely applicable to the MARTA materials. Liam Donat Murphy, “Urban Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, and Anthropology: Some Basic Definitions and Relationships,” in Digging up Halifax : The Problems and Promise of Archaeology in Metropolitan Nova Scotia, Occasional Papers in Anthropology 17 (Halifax: St. Mary’s University, 1994), 117–29. Bernard L. Fontana wrote a persuasive piece on why more recent “trash” has as much value as older, more traditional archaeological subjects in “Bottles, Buckets and Horseshoes: The Unrespectable in American Archaeology.” Bernard L. Fontana, “Bottles, Buckets and Horseshoes: The Unrespectable in American Archaeology,” Keystone Folklore Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1968): 171–84. The main questions answered in these articles are: Why should archaeologists study post-industrial remains? What can they tell us? When studying the archaeological remains of a city, how should archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists interpret and use the findings? How do excavations of the recent past benefit academia and the public, and how do they disrupt the traditional ideas of archaeology? Urban and historical archaeology is still niche in comparison to traditional archaeological subjects such as ancient and pre-Columbian topics. However, as these authors assert, modern materials are just as worthy of study as older ones. Murphy found that the main argument against putting resources towards studying urban sites is that it only serves is to reinforce what historians already know. However, urban archaeology does not entirely rely on history and cultural anthropology, it has its own merit in how it may uncover sociocultural and economic behaviors of poorly documented people and cultures that patch holes in the historical record. Murphy, “Urban Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, and Anthropology,” 121-22. If not for archaeology, history will only be based on what has been written and only when there are sources on the topic at hand, which is an inherently biased and incomplete view of what happened in the past. That is not to say that archaeology is unbiased and any more complete, but together history and archaeology can create the most complete picture possible. Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential in all fields of anthropological study, after all. This is especially relevant in the study of the soft drink industry. There are companies that no one would know existed if not for bottles that were found in the ground. Then there are companies that could never be forgotten such as Coca-Cola, but the archaeological abundance of Coke bottles allows new information to be added to what is already known. While archaeologists must have a good relationship with historians, they must also have relationships with corporations, the government, and the public. Dickens and Bowen conclude that because of the then-recent laws on cultural resource management, the legal demand for urban archaeological projects would increase dramatically in the future, making it crucial for archaeologists to have a good relationship with the public and the government to prove to them, and not just academics, that urban archaeology is worth doing. However, both Dickens/Bowen and Murphy note the many problems that always loom over the field of urban archaeology, such as sites being incredibly complex because of heavy human disturbance, looting, limited funding, and overwhelming scope. Dickens and Bowen, “Problems and Promises” 42 ; Murphy, “Urban Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, and Anthropology” 117. Dickens and Bowen introduce the idea that incorporating and informing the public to urban archaeological projects will be mutually beneficial to all parties involved. Dickens and Bowen, 55. Dicken and Bowen’s paper mostly analyzes their methodology in excavating the MARTA materials, but a section on hypothesis testing brings up how they went about researching materials for answering questions. They describe how they dated one site (9DA89) using a combination of interviews, newspapers, various records, and maps. Fontana elaborates on how to find these historical sources. Interestingly, one may find information on historical artifacts in unlikely places, such as geology catalogs for ceramics or socialist books for bottle manufacturing. Fontana, “Bottles, Buckets and Horseshoes,” 177–78. Fontana also introduces the idea of a divide in material culture with pre- and post- “interchangeable parts.” This presents a difference in consumption in the archaeological record that is under-studied (at least at the time of writing). Pre-interchangeable parts artifacts are those made by one person, with its own unique qualities, introducing a connection between an object and its maker. Conversely, post-interchangeable parts artifacts were introduced with the advent of the industrial revolution, which seems to diminish their value with archaeologists (of the time). Fontana, 173. These methods led me to recognize a vital difference in archaeology of post- and pre- industrial periods. When studying the relatively recent past (as in, the past 200 years) artifacts are much easier to date. Where ancient archaeologists may use dendrochronology, radioactive dating, geology, or other intensely scientific techniques to date sites and thus artifacts, historical archaeologists only need the Internet, libraries, and oral sources to determine the age and provenance of artifacts and thus, a site. In this regard, historical archaeology is more accessible. However, in an urban environment, there are so many more variables than a rural one that doing the excavations themselves could be considered less attainable. Thankfully, the digging has already been done for me, some fifty years ago, and now in the Internet age it is easier than ever to study the materials. Similar studies As there has never been an archaeological or historical survey on soft drinks of a city, I had to instead find studies that had similar scope and sites. My primary takeaway from these articles are how they analyze and present their data. The first is “The Goucher Dump: An Exercise in the Study of Material Culture” by Susan M. Cook, which explains the methodology and results of dating artifacts from a historic dump at Goucher College as someone new to historical archaeology. Susan M. Cook, “The Goucher Dump: An Exercise in the Study of Material Culture,” Goucher College Historical Documents and Ephemera Collection (Goucher College Library Special Collections: Goucher College, 1977), https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.33173608. “Archaeology of Covington, Kentucky: A particularly ‘northern-looking’ southern city” by Robert A. Genheimer suggests consumption and trade behaviors urban historical artifacts found in Covington and Cincinnati. Robert A. Genheimer, “Archaeology of Covington, Kentucky: A Particularly ‘Northern-Looking’ Southern City,” in The Archaeology of Southern Urban Landscapes, ed. Amy L. Young (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000), 69–91. The last, “Commodity Flow and National Market Access: A Case Study from Interior Alaska” by William Hampton Adams, Peter M. Bowers & Robin Mills, uses the Commodity Flow Model to analyze 20th-century artifacts found in Alaskan towns and attempts to apply the model to other similar excavations. William Hampton Adams, Peter M. Bowers, and Robin Mills, “Commodity Flow and National Market Access: A Case Study from Interior Alaska,” Historical Archaeology 35 (2001): 73–105, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374385. The main questions posed in these articles are: When was the site in use and what can be learned from the artifacts? What can marked/branded artifacts say about the market dependence of a community? Where did the mass-manufactured goods originate? Can an economic model apply to an archaeological site based on what was found? Cook’s paper is not a perfect source. It seems to be a report for a class or otherwise not a published article as it originates from Goucher College’s Special Collections (accessed via JSTOR) rather than a journal or book, and the version online is the original typed document with handwritten notes and occasional grammatical mistakes. It lacks the context and professionalism that a published article may have, and seems to be an unfinished study, but nevertheless it is an interesting source, especially as a fellow inexperienced student. Cook first explains the scope of the Goucher Dump site and what artifacts came from it. Only bottles and ceramics are mentioned in the paper and the dig was on a small scale, mostly surface collection. Her method for sorting and identifying the artifacts is laid out straightforwardly and she was able to find a date or date range from 56 bottles. From this she was able to speculate that the site was a domestic trash dump from around 1900-1940. Cook, “The Goucher Dump,” 8. Though the highlighted artifacts are interesting to read about, the process in dating them is nothing particularly new to me. The main takeaway from this paper is how a few bottles can provide a lot and too little information at the same time. They may point to certain consumption behaviors but also have wildly different dates that call the history of the site into question. With surface collection in populated areas there is simply too much human activity to preserve the strata in nicely organized datable levels. The historical archaeologist must determine if the artifacts actually show patterns or if they ended up together by an external factor. On larger scales, though, it is much easier to determine patterns. A clear conclusion was able to be made in Genheimer’s study of Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. The data set used for analysis includes 1,000 artifacts from urban digs in Covington and Cincinnati that have legible markings that indicate the manufacturer or place of origin. Local products constituted the majority of the data set, and many of the Covington finds came from Cincinnati, but not the other way around. However, the Ohio River region was still economically dependent on the Northern states. It suggests Covington’s economy was dependent on Cincinnati as Cincinnati’s was to the North. Genheimer, “Archaeology of Covington, Kentucky,” 90. Notably, Genheimer visually presents the data very comprehensively and transparently in numerous pages of charts. Seeing these will simply help me organize and visualize my own data. I could make a similar regional density map of my own, for example. Genheimer, 77. But what else can be done with the data? It may be presented nicely to see a local pattern, but what else could it tell us? Adams et al implement a new approach to analyzing historic archaeological data in their paper on early 20th century artifacts found in Alaskan towns. The basis of the paper is on the Commodity Flow Model, which models how industries distribute commodities based on their value, location in comparison to population density, and number of urban areas in regions of America. There are “high,” “intermediate,” and “low” regions centered around the Northeast/NYC, where local products apparently travel the farthest. Adams, Bowers, and Mills, “Commodity Flow and National Market Access,” 75. However, this is altered from an archaeological perspective to view it from what product was found, not the likelihood of it getting there. They found that Alaska’s economy was proportionately equal to other states in the “low” region despite its distance from the continental US. They conclude that because of this, the model should in theory be applicable to any interaction sphere in history. The Commodity Flow Model is somewhat reliable for assessing industrial relationships in Alaska through the archaeological data, but some aspects have to be simplified and weighted vs unweighted data gave very different results. This article informed me of how I might use this model or other economic models to visualize the relationship Atlanta soft drink manufacturing had to the surrounding areas, as most brands originate east of the Mississippi. Perhaps I could attempt to apply the model with its center in Atlanta. All three papers provided me with a new angle to discuss my data. Cook’s brings the accuracy of dating the artifacts into question, while Genheimer and Adams et al consider how economic patterns are shown in the archaeological record. Specific readings The final three sources are a bit less connected but provide information and methods for analyzing specifically soft drink bottles. “Garbage Disposal Patterns in Atlanta, circa 1900” by Linda F. Carnes presents patterns found within the artifact deposition in Atlanta historic dumps to uncover information about Atlanta’s material culture as it was growing in the early 20th century. Linda F. Carnes, “Garbage Disposal Patterns in Atlanta, circa 1900” (Conference presentation, Society for Historical Archaeology, Nashville, 1978). “An Examination of Manufacture-Deposition Lag for Glass Bottles from Late Historic Sites” by Sarah H. Hill applies a formula for determining deposition lag-- as in the time between when an artifact is made and when it is deposited in the ground-- to historic bottles from four sites, including one from the MARTA excavations. Sarah H. Hill, “An Examination of Manufacture-Deposition Lag for Glass Bottles from Late Historic Sites,” in Archaeology of Urban America: The Search for Patterns and Process, ed. Roy S. Dickens (New York: Academic Press, 1982), 291–327. “A century of leaders” in the book ‘Your Friendly Neighbor’: the story of Georgia’s Coca-Cola bottling families by Mike Cheatham is the introductory chapter in a book about Coca-Cola bottlers in Georgia. Mike Cheatham, “A Century of Leaders,” in “Your Friendly Neighbor”: The Story of Georgia’s Coca-Cola Bottling Families, 1st ed (Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 1999), 1–14. What patterns can be seen in the deposition lag of different categories of bottles? What social behavior brings artifacts into their archaeological context and how does this reflect society at the time of deposition? And more specifically, how had the Coca-Cola company benefitted itself and the state of Georgia from maintaining individual bottling franchises in the 20th century? Hill uses data from four sites across the U.S. that date from the 1850s-1950s. Though only one site is urban, the method is designed for analyzing urban behaviors. The one site that I took note of was the Edgewood site from the MARTA excavations that was dated to be in use from 1910-1911. 103 of the bottles found were able to be dated. Soda bottles were categorized by Hill as “fresh beverages” which also included milk and juice. Hill, “An Examination of Manufacture-Deposition Lag for Glass Bottles from Late Historic Sites,” 312. The method calculates the median manufacture date based on a range attained by researching when certain bottle types, maker’s marks, bottlers, and brands were in production. Hill explains the method as first attaining a median manufacture date for each specimen by researching when the specific type of bottle was made and then taking an average to obtain an overall median date of lag for each category of bottles. The date ranges, though possible, may not be realistic at all for products such as fresh beverages, and it may be more realistic to assume the latest possible manufacturing date for products that were likely to be consumed quickly. Hill does not take this into account. In her data, the date ranges are also cut off at the year the site was known to be sealed, which would alter the median manufacturing date for bottles with a range that extends past it. So a bottle on a site sealed in 1912 that was manufactured from 1905-1915 (med. 1910) would be calculated from 1905-1912 (med. 1908.5) though in theory it was equally likely to be made in 1910. Contrary to her hypothesis, fresh beverages (n=21) expressed the most lag of all the categories on the Edgewood site at an average of 7.5 years. That means the average soda, milk, and juice bottle took 7.5 years to be thrown out after it was manufactured. Hill attributes this to a few possible behaviors in the neighborhood, including that the neighborhood was lower-middle class so they did not consume these drinks that required refrigeration as often, or that they opted to drink them at a local drugstore instead of bottled at home. Hill, 313. Despite its inconsistencies, not only does this article date one site for me, it explains a formula for calculating yet another variable to maximize my data. The amount of lag allows archaeologists to theorize behavioral patterns at the site. In the same vein, Carnes predicts behavioral patterns in her work by analyzing what was found, not just its depositional lag. Carnes based her area of study on data gathered from the MARTA Archaeological Project excavations in the 1970s, as a student that helped excavate. Multiple sites around the city were deemed trash dumps, including the largest site of all, 9FU91. Carnes, “Garbage Disposal Patterns in Atlanta, circa 1900,” 10. However, this paper was mostly a historical research project to provide context for research into the items themselves. Carnes draws on a lot of historical context and research pertaining to life in the time period such as garbage collection practices and social phenomena that surrounded it. The artifacts exhibit evidence of certain dumps being used for different reasons, such as a tavern dump, and within there the archaeologists could examine behaviors, such as how there were no whole beer bottles at that site. And unlike Hill’s study, where the dump site was used by a specific neighborhood only, the artifacts at 9FU91 were removed from their original context to be deliberately disposed, allowing archaeologists less data about where the artifact originated and was used before its disposal. Carnes explains that the advent of motorized vehicles in the 1920s facilitated garbage collection and deposition to reach farther away from where they originated/were used. Carnes, 8. Carnes paper indirectly argues that historical archaeology needs to use prior primary-source research on societal behaviors of the time and place before making claims about the “meanings” of artifacts and this research should be just as important as looking into individual artifacts. This has led me to attempt finding sources on Atlanta’s, or at least Georgia’s, societal ideas and behaviors pertaining to soft drinks. The most relevant publication on this topic is Cheatham’s book Your Friendly Neighbor, of which I read the introductory chapter. Cheatham draws on primary sources such as the first bottling contract and personal accounts to demonstrate the impact that Coca-Cola had on Georgia. He introduces some of the ways Coca-Cola had a profound cultural impact on Atlanta and other Georgian cities through the prosperity it brought to the state through franchised bottling plants. The expansion of franchised bottlers allowed for personal prosperity among bottlers, not just for the Coca-Cola company, which facilitated philanthropic contributions throughout the state that would benefit the public at large. Cheatham, “A Century of Leaders,” 9. However, when Coke bought most of the independent bottlers in the 1970s, their company’s capital increased exponentially on the world stage but at the expense of Georgia’s own bottling families. Cheatham, 2. While Cheatham’s book focuses on specifically Coca-Cola bottlers in Georgia, Coke was indeed the most dominant force in the industry at the time in Georgia, so either way the one drink would likely influence consumer behaviors. However, Cheatham does not mention how this business impacted cultural preference to Coke, why Coca-Cola was considered superior in Georgia (other than for its contributions to the economy), and how knock-offs and competitors affected, or didn’t affect, the bottling economy. There were certainly also variables in how race and class would affect how one may reap the benefits of Coca-Cola money. Conclusion In its insatiable strive for growth, Atlanta has lost multitudes of histories, from train stations rivalling those of New York to small bottling operations housed in a long-gone office building. The bottles in the MARTA Archaeological Collection contain a wealth of information; they represent the glass maker, the drink bottler, the founder of the brand, the company that owned the brand, the store that sold it, and infinitely more variables. The lost history can be brought to light with the methods and theory established by the last few decades work in historical & urban archaeology. However, finding this work was a study within itself as I had to pull from unlikely places. The future the overarching study will not be a series of Google searches, but rather an effort to piece together conclusions from methods used in obscure papers and creating a completely unique research project.  Works Cited Adams, William Hampton, Peter M. Bowers, and Robin Mills. “Commodity Flow and National Market Access: A Case Study from Interior Alaska.” Historical Archaeology 35 (2001): 73–105. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374385. Carnes, Linda F. “Garbage Disposal Patterns in Atlanta, circa 1900.” Conference presentation presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology, Nashville, 1978. Cheatham, Mike. “A Century of Leaders.” In “Your Friendly Neighbor”: The Story of Georgia’s Coca-Cola Bottling Families, 1st ed., 1–14. Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 1999. Cook, Susan M. “The Goucher Dump: An Exercise in the Study of Material Culture.” Goucher College Historical Documents and Ephemera Collection. Goucher College Library Special Collections: Goucher College, 1977. https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.33173608. Dickens, Roy S., and William R. Bowen. “Problems and Promises in Urban Historical Archaeology: The MARTA Project.” Historical Archaeology 14 (1980): 42–57. Fontana, Bernard L. “Bottles, Buckets and Horseshoes: The Unrespectable in American Archaeology.” Keystone Folklore Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1968): 171–84. Genheimer, Robert A. “Archaeology of Covington, Kentucky: A Particularly ‘Northern-Looking’ Southern City.” In The Archaeology of Southern Urban Landscapes, edited by Amy L. Young, 69–91. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000. Hill, Sarah H. “An Examination of Manufacture-Deposition Lag for Glass Bottles from Late Historic Sites.” In Archaeology of Urban America: The Search for Patterns and Process, edited by Roy S. Dickens, 291–327. New York: Academic Press, 1982. Murphy, Liam Donat. “Urban Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, and Anthropology: Some Basic Definitions and Relationships.” In Digging up Halifax : The Problems and Promise of Archaeology in Metropolitan Nova Scotia, 117–29. Occasional Papers in Anthropology 17. Halifax: St. Mary’s University, 1994.